The longest running current rivalry in wrestling isn't between Triple H and Randy Orton, Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle, Austin Aries and Jimmy Jacobs or Edge and John Cena. It's not even between two wrestlers. It's among the fans. For as long as Dave Meltzer, Wade Keller and other wrestling journalists have had their dirtsheets, providing fans who wanted the info with all the info they needed, there has been a divide between the so called "smarks" (an amalgamation of "smart mark") and the "casual fan". The defender of the so-called "casual fan" (still in quotes for a reason) usually paints the smark as out-of-touch, elitist and someone whose idea of wrestling utopia is so far gone from what makes money and pops crowds.
Meanwhile, while it's easy to lump all smarks together into one group (just as it is easy to lump all casual fans in the same category when their tastes can vary differently from the section they sit in let alone region to region), there are many different kinds of smarks. Most people associate them with the vocal minority who'd love to see Shelton Benjamin headline this year's SummerSlam cold against Jack SWAGGAH~! and would be content never to see John Cena win another match. I'd like to think I represent a more silent majority of people who look more at how the major companies book themselves, how they should fix their products and with elevating new stars to go with established order.
There's always plenty of debate on any Internet wrestling website as to whom the WWE and TNA should cater to. The answer is quite simple. They should cater to us. The smarks, the reasonable ones, at least. No matter what the biggest defenders of the status quo will tell you, we want what's best for any wrestling company. We don't bitch and moan about the WWE or to a lesser extent, TNA, if we don't want them to succeed and then entertain us in the process. And usually, what we want is what the so-called "casual fan" wants too.
Those who defend what the "casual fan" wants would have most people believe that the "casual fan" is a moron and is merely entertained by seeing a guy who's over already come out and dominate. While wrestling's demographics don't skew to, say, graduates of Harvard Law, that's not to say that all wrestling fans are mouth-breathing rednecks. Again, what are pegged as casual fans are a group of culturally diverse people who have one thing in common: they like wrestling.
(As an aside, I don't think there are a lot of casual fans out there anymore. To me, the casual fan is the fan who watched in 1998 because it was the hip thing to do. Right now, there are probably two major groups: the ones labled as "smarks" and a larger group of wrestling fans who are hardly casual in their habits but who don't surf the Internet and don't think about wrestling critically like someone like myself would. That's neither here nor there though.)
We all watch because we like to see the action in the ring. If we didn't, then we'd watch other TV shows with similar plotlines as what the WWE TV writers are trying to shove on us, only without the wrestling attached and with better actors involved. In fact, I'll say that it's impossible for someone to be over if they can't work at all. I mean, sure, you need to be able to work AND talk if you want to reach the highest of echelons, but you have to be able to bring it in the ring.
So, why are we labeled out of touch when we want good wrestlers to get pushes?
I mean, in our biggest lobbying case, we were proven absolutely right. Chris Benoit was the Internet's darling for the longest time. We were clamoring for him to get a shot in 1999, when he was chosen to be in the Owen Hart Tribute match on Nitro against Bret Hart. The match was given tons of praise, but people shrugged it off as being due to the situation, not the men involved. We clamored for him in 2000, when WCW was hemorrhaging [sic] talent and switching direction every other week. They gave him the belt to try and stop him from leaving, at the point where no one was watching WCW anymore. We clamored for him in the early 00s in the WWF, to the point where he was finally given a shot in the main event. He wrestled a fantastic match with Kurt Angle for the WWF Championship at Royal Rumble 2003. In defeat, the crowd cheered him. Standing ovation. From everyone. Not just from a small percentage of people marginal enough to discount as "Internet fans". Everyone. We clamored for him to win the title after that. We got it at WrestleMania XX, which closed with Eddie Guerrero, WWE Champion and Chris Benoit, World Heavyweight Champion, in embrace, which was the most well-received ending to a WrestleMania ever until Benoit went and tarnished it by murdering his family, but still, it proved that people can get behind a guy who may not be the best talker in the world if he's damn entertaining in the ring.
It also proves that people don't want to see the same thing over and over again. Benoit was something different, something new, and he was received well. Besides, how do you think guys like Triple H, The Rock, John Cena etc. got over in the first place? They weren't just introduced and everyone took to them. They needed build, they needed chances to get over. If you saw Triple H as blueblood snob Hunter Hearst Helmsley or The Rock as Rocky Maivia and thought, "man, there go two blue-chip multiple-time World Champions," then you would have been more prescient than nearly everybody else. They didn't show that they had "it" until they were given the right opportunity to succeed.
Meanwhile, a guy like Christian, who has proven that he can carry a crowd, work a good main event match and get himself over, waits on the sidelines, his critics saying that the "casual fan" doesn't want to see him because he doesn't have "it". Excuse me, but when has Christian ever been given the chance to be in a main event program in the WWE? He was given the ball in TNA and he ran with it. It's a shame though, because no one watches TNA for the most part, and even those who do admit that it's not on the level of the WWE's major two brands unless they're blind fanboys.
It baffles me as to why we're labled as elitists because we want other people to get a chance. Again, the vocal minority aside, no one is asking that Christian be pushed ahead of everyone else on the roster. We just want him to get a chance to run with the ball. Odds are, he'll succeed, much like Chris Benoit did, much like Eddie Guerrero did, much like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels did in the 90s, much like Samoa Joe did in TNA before they tattooed a penis on his face and turned him into Pacific Islander Norman Bates.
Are we wrong sometimes? Yes, but isn't everyone? The fact is, our track record regarding wrestling, title integrity, pushing guys who can work etc. is spot on. The WWE needs to cater to us because we have our fingers on the pulse of the "casual fan" more than they or their apologists do.
I mean, look at what killed WCW. They ran the same main events all the time until it was too late. They pissed and shit on their World Championship until it was too late. Before they realized that they needed to treat their titles with respect and push new faces, death was inevitable. If they had listened to their smarter fans, they might still be in business today.
We don't bitch and complain just for the sake of doing it, or because we're impossible to please, or for any other reason than we want to see as many healthy wrestling companies as possible. We want to enjoy the product and furthermore, we want other people to enjoy the product. To be called snobbish or elitist is unfair to us, because it's not being a snob if you're proven right time and time again, and it's not elitist if you think that MORE people should be given a shot rather than just a select few. That's actually the opposite of elitist.
SO in that regard, I hope that Vince McMahon and Dixie Carter are listening to us loud and clear. Because if they don't, they may not like the way their companies end up.
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